Issue: Workforce Participation for Sole Parents
Attached Below: Original letter sent to politicians and agencies
PLEASE FORWARD THIS IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO ALL THE SOLE PARENTS YOU KNOW
18 March, 2006
Dear Friends,
Yesterday I had an appointment with my local Federal Member of Parliament, Christopher Pyne (Torrens, South Australia). The meeting had not been easy to set up. First I sent a letter (via email), to which I received no reply. A week later, I rang his office, and his diary secretary said she would speak with Christopher and get back to me. A week after that, I rang his office again. This time, his diary secretary told me that the materials I had sent were on his desk, and she hoped he would have a chance to look at them that afternoon. She promised to get back to me after speaking with him to set up an appointment. A week later, I went to his office and told the young man at the front desk that I had been trying for three weeks to get an appointment to speak with Christopher Pyne. He disappeared for several long minutes, and then reappeared, with the diary secretary, who told me “Christopher is happy to meet with you, and he is available next Friday. What time would suit you?”
Advice: It is your right to speak with your MP. Perseverance pays off. Fronting up to the office elicits the most rapid response.
Christopher met me in the meeting room, of his office, a lovely old bungalow on Magill Road in Adelaide. He has the whole building set up as working space. There is no backyard left, it having been converted to a car park, but his indulgence, an old gold bomb-like car, sits in the driveway. The meeting room has two doors, and a window that looks out onto the street. It contains a large, wooden table, with many chairs. I made sure I took a chair that didn’t leave my back to either of the doors.
He asked me why I was there. I said “Did you read my letter?” He said “Well, it would be somewhere out there,” and gestured vaguely toward the other part of his building.
Advice: Bring a copy of your letter and/or documentation with you, when you meet your local politician.
Disappointed that my letter clearly had remained unread, or had made no impact on him, I took him through the ludicrous situation in which I find myself. Briefly, that as a sole parent, I work 18 hours a week on top of parenting, for about $1.66/hour, due to the combination of being taxed, plus having my welfare payment deducted. I explained to him that I had made an error in my letter, believing that Centrelink deducted my pension at the rate of 30¢ in the dollar, when in fact it deducts my pension at 40¢ in the dollar.
I explained to Christopher the impact that this has on me and my children, that I find it and demoralizing and struggle with depression. That it interferes with my creative life. That I prefer to work as well as parent, but this regime interferes with my well-being and ability to create, let alone function. That as a sole parent, I have been unusual in prioritizing my children’s extra-curricular activities, and ensuring they live a life as close to ‘normal’ as possible, but that as they have gotten older, this has become untenable. I empty my bank account each week just with paying out for the basic things of life: food, rent, car and school expenses.
I told Christopher that since sending my letter, I had received a response from Centrelink, who had been contacted by Joe Hockey (NSW), one of the politicians to whom I had sent the letter. Centrelink investigated my file and discovered an anomaly which meant I was owed arrears in the order of $565. I told Christopher that receiving this money had been a wonderful surprise, but it didn’t solve my problem.
I told him that the $565 enabled me to pay off my outstanding debt to my mechanic, to pay a chunk off the school fees I owe for my children (both at a state high school), and that I would now be able to buy some new underwear for myself, and my daughter. He laughed at this, but I was serious. I hadn’t been able to afford to replace my underwear, which has been getting progressively shabbier by the week.
Christopher wanted to know the age of my children, and what school they go to. He said that his children go to Burnside Primary School, and agreed with me that yes, even state schools charge fees. He asked me how long I had been a sole parent. I said I had left my marriage in 1993. He said “Thirteen years? Your daughter must have been very small then.” I said “Yes, she was still breastfeeding at the time.”
He agreed with me that the situation is ludicrous, and went to pains to let me know I was not telling him anything he didn’t already know. He said I am obviously a good mum, to which I responded “Well there’s no doubt that I’m a good mother, but that’s not really the point.”
Christopher Pyne then went into politician-mode and confided to me that conditions for sole parents and the Welfare to Work platform of his Liberal Party, is a political issue, with which Labor disagrees. He said it’s something the Liberal Party wants to deal with, in order to take away any ammunition from the Labor Party. I said to Christopher Pyne that as far as I am concerned, it’s more about the people whose lives are being affected by these punitive regimes.
Christopher Pyne said to me that the issue of Welfare to Work is very important to Peter Costello, and that it is being looked at right now. He said that there may be something good for me coming out in this year’s budget, and that Peter Costello would prefer to make tax cuts for those people on the low end of the tax bracket, than for those who earn over $100,000 per annum.
He mentioned the idea of increasing the Tax Free Threshold to $20,000. I said that I have heard welfare groups talk about this as a possible solution to the problem. I said however, that I am happy to pay tax. I am tired of sole parents being referred to as a drain on the tax payer, because we pay a lot of tax. What I don’t think is fair, is the way the government dips into my income twice and deducts 70% of my earnings every fortnight, leaving me barely able to maintain my household at a decent living standard.
Christopher changed the subject. He wanted to know whether I had any connection with the Women’s Centre at St Peters, which he used to “help”, after it had had its budget slashed by the State Government. He told me that everyone there voted Labor, but that didn’t stop him from helping them. Now that he has children of his own, however, Christopher has no loose money, and so he no longer helps out the women’s centre.
When Christopher so callously complained of having “no loose money” due to the fact that he now has three children and a wife to maintain, I realised he had not heard me at all when I spoke of my life, in which I am unable to afford to buy new underwear, or my fear of having two bright teenagers for whose higher education I have been unable to save a single cent. Though a quick browse on the internet does not bring the exact figures to light, I am certain that Christopher Pyne earns at least six times what I do each week.
I feel ashamed that I did not manage to come out with the words that I had rehearsed, in preparation for my meeting with Christopher Pyne. I had planned to ask him how he thought his lovely wife would cope, raising their lovely children on the kind of income on which my children and I subsist. Alas, he was already out of his chair, ushering me toward the second door in his meeting room which turned out to lead directly to the street. “You’ve done what you could,” he said to me, “in coming to see your local politician.”
If the Tax Free Threshold is raised to $20,000 per annum, I think life for me may become a little easier. However, I still fear for my future, and the future of my children, who are about to be faced with becoming numbers themselves, in the system, as they go from being my children to being Youth Allowance recipients and themselves having to report their every move to Centrelink. This will determine many aspects of their future, such as what kind of job they choose, whether they are able to go to university and where, as well as what kind of housing they can afford when they eventually leave home.
As for me, with my meager superannuation savings, despite voluntary contributions, I can really only hope to die young, and be grateful that my HECS debt will not be taken out of whatever estate I have to leave my children, because it would surely bankrupt them before they have even begun. As it is, I cannot even afford my own funeral yet, so I’d better not begin to plan it just yet.
Yours truly,
Melina Magdalena
© 2006
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